Chapter 7

The sign over the office door said REGISTRY OF FREE-STATUS LABOR FORCE, and under that ROOM 1104. Hawkes nudged the door open and they went in.

It was not an imposing room. A fat pasty-faced man sat behind a scarred neoplast desk, scribbling his signature on forms that he was taking from an immense stack. The room was lined with records of one sort or another, untidy, poorly assembled. There was dust everywhere.

The man at the desk looked up as they entered and nodded to Hawkes. “Hello, Max. Making an honest man of yourself at last?”

“Not on your life,” Hawkes said. “I came up here to do some checking. Alan, this is Hines MacIntosh, Keeper of the Records. Hines, want you to meet a starman friend of mine. Alan Donnell.”

“Starman, eh?” MacIntosh’s pudgy face went suddenly grave. “Well, boy, I hope you know how to get along on an empty stomach. Free Status life isn’t easy.”

“No,” Alan said. “You don’t under--”

Hawkes cut him off. “He’s just in the city on leave, Hines. His ship blasts off in a couple of days and he figures to be on it. But he’s trying to track down his brother, who jumped ship nine years back.”

MacIntosh nodded. “I suppose you drew a blank in the big room downstairs?”

“Yes.”

“Not surprising. We get these ship-jumping starmen all the time up here; they never do get work cards, it seems. What’s that thing on your shoulder, boy?”

“He’s from Bellatrix VII.”

“Intelligent?”

“I should say so!” Rat burst in indignantly. “Just because I have a certain superficial physiological resemblance to a particular species of unpleasant Terran rodent--”

MacIntosh chuckled and said, “Ease up! I didn’t mean to insult you, friend! But you’ll have to apply for a visa if you’re going to stay here more than three days.”

Alan frowned. “Visa?”

Hawkes cut in: “The boy’s going back on his ship, I told you. He won’t need a visa, or the alien either.”

“Be that as it may,” MacIntosh said. “So you’re looking for your brother, boy? Give me the specifications, now. Name, date of birth, and all the rest.”

“His name is Steve Donnell, sir. Born 3576. He jumped ship in--”

“Born when, did you say?”

“They’re spacers,” Hawkes pointed out quietly.

MacIntosh shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“Jumped ship in 3867--I think. It’s so hard to tell what year it is on Earth.”

“And physical description?”

“He was my twin,” Alan said. “Identical twin.”

MacIntosh jotted down the data Alan gave him and transferred it to a punched card. “I don’t remember any spacers of that name,” he said, “but nine years is a long time. And we get so many starmen coming up here to take out Free Status.”

“You do?”

“Oh, fifteen or twenty a year, at least--and that’s in this office alone. They’re forever getting stranded on leave and losing their ships. Why, there was one boy who was robbed and beaten in the Frisco Enclave and didn’t wake up for a week. Naturally he missed his ship, and no other starship would sign him on. He’s on Free Status now, of course. Well, let’s see about Donnell Steve Male, shall we? You realize the law doesn’t require Free Status people to register with us, and so we may not necessarily have any data on him in our computer files?”

“I realize that,” Alan said tightly. He wished the chubby records-keeper would stop talking and start looking for Steve’s records. It was getting along toward late afternoon now; he had come across from the Enclave around noontime, and certainly it was at least 1600 by now. He was getting hungry--and he knew he would have to start making plans for spending the night somewhere, if he didn’t go back to the Enclave.

MacIntosh pulled himself laboriously out of his big webwork cradle and wheezed his way across the room to a computer shoot. He dropped the card in.

“It’ll take a few minutes for them to make the search,” he said, turning. He looked in both directions and went on, “Care for a drink? Just to pass the time?”

Hawkes grinned. “Good old Hinesy! What’s in the inkwell today?”

“Scotch! Bottled in bond, best syntho stuff to come out of Caledonia in the last century!” MacIntosh shuffled back behind his desk and found three dingy glasses in one of the drawers; he set them out and uncorked a dark blue bottle plainly labelled INK.

He poured a shot for Hawkes and then a second shot; as he started to push it toward Alan, the starman shook his head. “Sorry, but I don’t drink. Crewmen aren’t allowed to have liquor aboard starships. Regulation.”

“Oh, but you’re off-duty now!”

Alan shook his head a second time; shrugging, MacIntosh took the drink himself and put the unused third glass back in the drawer.

“Here’s to Steve Donnell!” he said, lifting his glass high. “May he have had the good sense to register his name up here!”

They drank. Alan watched. Suddenly, the bell clanged and a tube rolled out of the computer shoot.

Alan waited tensely while MacIntosh crossed the room again, drew out the contents of the tube, and scanned them. The fat man’s face was broken by a smile.

“You’re in luck, starman. Your brother did register with us. Here’s the ‘stat of his papers.”

Alan looked at them. The photostat was titled, APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION TO FREE-STATUS LABOR FORCE, and the form had been filled out in a handwriting Alan recognized immediately as Steve’s: bold, untidy, the letters slanting slightly backward.

He had given his name as Steve Donnell, his date of birth as 3576, his chronological age as seventeen. He had listed his former occupation as Starman. The application was dated 4 June 3867, and a stamped notation on the margin declared that Free Status had been granted on 11 June 3867.

“So he did register,” Alan said. “But now what? How do we find him?”

Hawkes reached for the photostat. “Here. Let me look at that.” He squinted to make out the small print, then nodded and wrote down something. “His televector number’s a local one. So far, so good.” He turned the form over and glanced at the reproduced photo of Steve on the back. He looked up, comparing it with Alan.